


A Time For Us

by palmyre



Series: DCU Imagines [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: Arkham - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:57:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmyre/pseuds/palmyre
Summary: For the past few weeks, the same man had been coming to your bookstore.You didn’t register his presence properly, at first. The first day or so, you caught a glimpse of dark hair and a red hood – near the back shelves, browsing the titles under Horror. Nothing significant enough to leave an impression. Just another customer who flipped through some pages and left without buying anything.(Reader and Jason as childhood friends, before Everything.)





	A Time For Us

One look at Mr. Wayne’s face and you knew it would be the worst possible news.

Framed in your doorway, he had a look on his face you’d never seen before. A quiet, dark anguish seen in the new lines around his mouth, the thousand-yard gaze in his eyes. He was nothing like the man you’d seen a handful of times before – the glamorous Bruce Wayne who dominated the media. He didn’t even look like Jason’s charming—but somewhat peculiar—foster father. He was a stranger.

You felt cold, suddenly. Like all the heat had been yanked out of your body in one swoop.

“What is it?” You begged, hand tightening on the doorknob. “Is there any news? Mr. Wayne?”

 In the shitty lighting of your apartment’s hallway, Mr. Wayne seemed shrouded in shadow. “May I come inside?” he asked, hollow.

You realized slowly that you were shaking your head. “No. What is it? What did you come to tell me?” You demanded.

Bruce Wayne stared at you for a long minute then sighed, low and weary. “Jason is dead,” he said. “I am… sorry.”

Blood pounded in your ears. “No,” you said, numb. “No.”

“I wish it wasn’t true, but it is. His… kidnappers. They sent me proof. Jason’s dead.”

You flinched from the words. “No,” you said, louder. At some point, your breathing had turned into rapid, harsh pants. “Shut up, just—stop talking,” you pleaded.

“I—the police haven’t found his body yet,” Wayne said. Everything out of his mouth felt like a knife. “But we’re still looking. We’ll bring him ho—”

“Shut up!” The scream ripped out of you, a wave of raw fury on its heels. In a surge of mindless rage, you threw up your hands, brought them up to Bruce Wayne’s front, and _shoved_ , shoved as hard as you could. He took a few resigned steps back. A mix of resignation, pity, and sorrow shone in his eyes.

You slammed the door in his face.

Bile rose in your throat. Whirling around, you barreled through the small apartment until you reached the fire escape outside the living room window. You clambered onto it, clumsy in your haste.

A burst of cold air, unforgiving and without mercy. You barely felt it, though. And you were already shaking, trembling all over, with the effort of holding back tears. Tiny, muffled whimpers escaped you even though you pressed your lips together as tightly as you could. It felt like great big cracks were splintering through your body.

So… you gave up.

And let it all out.

All the grief poured out from you in noisy, broken sobs. You gripped the icy railing until your palms burned. Tears streamed down your cheeks. You cried until the twinkling dusk faded into the black night, until you felt empty and hollowed inside-out. Until the grief became a void in your chest.

“Jay,” you whispered, and the idea that you would never get to call him by his name again—it hurt, worse than any pain you’d felt. You closed your eyes. “ _Jay.”_

***

For the past few weeks, the same man had been coming to your bookstore.

You didn’t register his presence properly, at first. The first day or so, you caught a glimpse of dark hair and a red hood – near the back shelves, browsing the titles under Horror. Nothing significant enough to leave an impression. Just another customer who flipped through some pages and left without buying anything.

A year after the Gotham Exodus (as the media had taken to calling it), the city struggled to adjust. No more Batman, no more Bruce Wayne. Billions in damages to infrastructure. People missing in droves.

Even more dead.

One year later, you were only just managing to pull yourself into some semblance of normal. Like rising out of a fog to notice the new dawn.

So you thought you could be forgiven for not being the most observant person in the world.

Then you started to notice him more and more. He didn’t show up every day, but often enough that you grew used to his presence. He moved around the store but tended to stay near the back. You never saw his face. Instead, you came to know him by the red jacket he wore, the hood always pulled up. He wore a surgical mask too – maybe he was ill? Some kind of… immunodeficiency? Whatever the reason, he was clearly a man who didn’t want to be identified.

Crime Alley born and bred, you maintained a healthy sense of distrust. Especially for the first handful of times that he showed up to the store. No one lived in Gotham for more than a month and didn’t pick up a radar for when shit started to feel wrong. So you went about your business while making sure to keep him in your peripheries.

_Just try me, buddy_ , you thought at him once, narrowing your eyes at his broad back while he flipped through Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. He looked pretty built, but you’d pulled yourself out of hairier situations than a creepy stalker at work. Gotta love Gotham, huh?

But he kept showing up, day after day, doing nothing more than perusing the shelves for an hour or so before disappearing. It irked you a little that he never bought anything – but then, your parents had always encouraged people to browse to their heart’s content without dropping a penny. Not the best business model, but miraculously the store had always pulled through. Long after your parents were gone, you tried to keep their legacy alive.

For their sakes, you said nothing and kept a polite distance as Tall, Dark, and Silent loitered in the back, shoulders hunched and a dark cloud hovering over him. It started to feel like you’d acquired a stray cat, actually. You couldn’t just go up and start petting a wary cat. _That_ would pretty much guarantee a frosty, injured silence. And maybe some vicious scratches. Instead, you had to sort of quietly exist around them, going about your day and letting them grow accustomed to you. Maybe set out a bowl of milk and hope to coax them out.

In this case, substitute milk for a worn copy of World War I poetry.

After a few weeks, you’d observed that your mysterious regular drifted to that book more than any other. It was an old book. You remembered reading it as a teenager, sitting on the floor with your back against the hard shelving. The stranger clearly liked it. He even seemed to linger on certain pages. Briefly, you thought about going up to him and saying, “You can have it if you want. No charge. Think of it as a gift.”

But what if it scared him away? Or he got offended?

You’d grown used to him, over the weeks. It would feel kind of weird now if he didn’t show up anymore.

Once, when he wasn’t there, you’d picked up the book. It fell open to a creased page. _The Death Bed_ , by Siegfried Sassoon. Automatically, your eyes fell to lines halfway down the page – _He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped through crimson gloom to darkness_.

You shut the book and replaced it back on the shelf. It had felt almost like infringing on the stranger’s privacy to open it.

The pattern continued for almost a month.

He would show up about an hour before closing. Hang around silently before stepping out and vanishing into the Gotham fog. You’d stay near the front and daydream about things to say to him. The perfect words to magically draw him out of his shell. A charming quip, a witty one-liner.

But when you finally spoke up, the words that came out were far from perfect. They were clumsy, unplanned, and probably sounded like nonsense.

Mansfield Park drove you to it. You were sneaking glances at the stranger while pretending to be engrossed in shelving books when you saw the cover of the book he was reading. And before you could stop yourself, your mouth was falling open and you were saying, “I had a friend who refused to shut up about that book.”

Wait.

What just happened?

You were so busy being horrified by what you’d just done that you almost missed the stranger’s reaction. He didn’t turn around, but the lines of his shoulders tensed up a bit. His voice, when he spoke, was rough. “Did he.” Not a question.

That should have been your cue to shut up and quietly return to the cash register. To never speak up again and pray that you hadn’t ruined everything. Instead, oh god, _you just kept going_.

“We had to read it in high school,” you said into an awkward, strained silence. “No one in our class liked it. Except for J—my friend. He said none of us got it. That it was all about the patriarchy, and corruption, and the failings of conservatism. He knew all about the historical context too. He… was kind of a nerd. But, um, sorry, I noticed you reading it and—and it just reminded me of him. I didn’t mean to bother you. Just… go back to reading, sorry.”

It couldn’t have been worse if you’d gone up to him and thrown up all over his feet. Christ. Face burning, you eyed him nervously to see what would happen.

He shut the book. Put it back on the shelf. And, as you watched with increasing guilt and misery, he marched out into the autumn chill without a word.

He kept his head low and carefully turned away as he passed you. But, for a split second, you thought you might have caught a glimpse of his eyes. A flash of blue, like cold Gotham rain. And…

Something that had looked a lot like furious anguish.

You stood at the window, staring at his retreating figure until he turned the corner. Confusion mixed with regret until your head hurt.

For the past few weeks, the same man had been coming to your bookstore.

And you were starting to feel like… you knew him.

***

You didn’t see him again for several days.

Your brain refused to quiet down even in his absence. If anything, it seemed like your imagination grew wilder and wilder when he wasn’t there. Little things suddenly seemed much more significant.

Blue eyes. You’d never forgotten Jason’s eyes – they could shine as cold as ice or glow incandescent like flames. You used to tease him about his long eyelashes. That always made him snort and shove you lightly.

The stranger had blue eyes. You were sure of it. Of course, Jason had been on your mind at the moment you saw them… so maybe you were just seeing what you wanted?

Had the stranger sounded like Jason? What had he said… nothing more than a few words, right? You couldn’t remember clearly.

The books he read! You smiled triumphantly. Those were definitely all books Jason liked or would have liked. Your smile faded. Then again… plenty of people liked those same books. It was hardly conclusive evidence.

With a groan, your head dropped into your hands. This was _insane_. How could you possibly entertain the idea that your childhood friend, dead for years, had mysteriously come back to life… just to hang around your bookstore while refusing to say a word to you?

_Actually_ , you mused. _That does sound like something Jason would do._

You shook your head. This was pathetic. After all these years, you still hadn’t moved on. Like a desperate child, you still held on hope for a miracle that was never going to happen.

“Therapy, that’s what I need,” you announced into the empty store just as the bell above the door jingled merrily. You turned to greet the customers, unable to squash the spark of hope that the stranger had come back— and your voice died in your throat.

Two hulking brutes stood in front of you, one slowly drawing a handgun from his jacket. They didn’t look like they’d come in because of the window display.

Oh.

Oh _hell_ no.

“Look, assholes,” you snapped. “I know fucking Penguin or whoever didn’t send you to rob a goddamn _bookstore_ , unless things have gotten really desperate in the crime world. If you wanted lunch money you’d have better luck hitting up a middle-schooler. This bitch,” you nodded jerkily at the cash register. “Is empty.”

“You’re a mouthy one, ain’t ya,” said one of the thugs, chuckling. “How about you let us take a look and see for ourselves, sweetheart?”

You stared. “Ew, what? Yeah, don’t call me that shit.”

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I want—”

_CRASH!_ The world exploded in a shower of glass.

You threw your arms up instinctively to shield your face. Sounds of thuds and pained screams ripped through the air before dying into a grim silence. Trembling a little, you lowered your arms just enough to see the two brutes sprawled on the ground, completely knocked out.

_What the…_

Slowly, shakily, your eyes rose— and you found yourself staring into redness.

You inhaled sharply. A figure in red and grey stood over the two limp bodies, his heavy boot pressing down with careful deliberation on one of their necks. Beneath him, the thug stirred mulishly.

The deafening _crack!_ of a gunshot. You flinched.

He didn’t stir again.

“Woah,” you said, voice wobbling a bit.

The figure turned to you. You brutally squashed another flinch and forced yourself to meet his gaze unflinchingly – or where you assumed his gaze was, at least. He wore a full-face helmet that betrayed nothing of his expression. It felt like staring into a sea of blood.

You’d thought he was just a rumor. The merciless, brutal vigilante who clearly followed a moral code all of his own.

But everything else you thought you knew had changed, hadn’t it?

The Red Hood stood silently in front of you. Something about the tense lines of his shoulders, the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides – it looked almost like uncertainty. Then, with a sharp jerk, he spun around and strode towards the shattered window of the storefront.

You made a small sound, unable to stop yourself. You had no idea what you planned to say to him.

Red Hood stopped again. Was he hesitating? He tilted his head in your direction. “Are you okay?” he asked, low and rough.

You stared. “ _Am I—_ ” You broke off and laughed, a touch hysterical. You didn’t even know anymore. Taking slow, deep breaths through your nose, you forced yourself to calm down.

Red Hood still didn’t leave.

You summoned the effort to keep your tone light. “After all these years, I was afraid I’d forgotten the sound of your voice.”

Silence. Red Hood went alarmingly still.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, finally, after a long pause.

“Don’t you?” you cried, voice raw. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Everything is screaming at me that I’m being stupid, that I’m seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. This isn’t rational! It doesn’t make sense! But all I know is—all I know is that I thought I’d forgotten your voice, but I _hadn’t_. It was in my brain all this time, and I just needed a— a push. I’ve been waiting to hear it. All. This. Time.”

You broke on a ragged sigh. “Also,” you said softly. “I’ve never seen eyes like yours in anyone else.”

Red Hood made a noise somewhere between a snarl and a shaky exhale. “We’re not doing this here,” he growled. In quick, sharp movements, he covered the short distance between the two of you and grabbed your wrist. Dazed, you followed him to the window – or what was left of it.

His arm dropped to your waist and pulled you tightly to his side.

Your jaw dropped open. Well, this was _fresh_. “Hey, what are youuuuu _OH MY GOD!_ ” The whooshing wind swallowed up your shriek as you zipped through the cold air.

It felt like you’d left your stomach back on the ground. It took a second for you to realize that you were once again on solid footing. You looked around frantically –somehow, you’d ended up on top of a tall building.

“Holy shit, that was terrifying!” You said, trying to stay up on quivering legs. Your lips twitched into a grin. “We _have_ to do that again later.”

A snort. Red Hood took a few steps back, taking his body heat with him. You watched him carefully.

“I didn’t…” You sighed. Rubbed your eyes, suddenly feeling completely drained. “You can just walk away, you know. If that’s what you want. We can both just pretend that I’m some sad, confused hot mess—”

Red Hood reached up and removed his helmet.

Your breath caught in your throat. No mask, no hood – you stood face-to-face with a ghost, a memory, a buried wish.

“Is this a dream?” You asked, choked. Tears filled your eyes and you blinked them away furiously, desperate to keep your vision as clear as possible.

He wasn’t the Jason Todd you remembered – not the young boy with the devil-may-care grin and bright eyes. But, instead, a man grown. You searched his features, finding the familiar blue gaze now hardened with years and experiences you couldn’t begin to fathom. The Roman nose, already a little crooked in childhood from healing poorly after a fight. Unruly black hair. And—a scar.

“ _Jason_ ,” you managed, the tears managing to spill free down your cheeks. You ignored them, taking a step forward. “Is it really you? Am I—am I really not dreaming?”

His eyes met yours. Your heart soared, impossibly ecstatic. You _knew_ , you knew you hadn’t forgotten what his eyes had looked like.

“This is _nothing_ like a dream,” Jason said harshly. His knuckles were bone-white against the red of his helmet. “I’m not the kid you once knew. _He_ died a long time ago. Alone. Broken. If you think you know who I am, if you think—that things are just going to go back to the way they were—”

“Shut up, Jason.”

Jason’s jaw shut with an audible _click_. He blinked, looking a little stunned, like he hadn’t thought there were still people in the city dumb enough to tell the Red Hood to shut up to his face.

“You think I don’t know that?” You demanded, scowling at him. “Of course we can’t go back to what we used to be. I have no idea what you’ve been through, but I know it must have been… unimaginable. But you’re not dead! You’re here, standing right in front of me, and _you_ were the one who kept showing up to my shop, over and over and _over_. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because of our Shakespeare collection. You’ve changed, Jason, but I see now that one thing’s still the same. Jason Todd, for all his prickly attitude and righteous temper, has always wanted a place to belong. People to call his own.”

It hurt to keep looking at Jason. You’d never seen him look so—raw, so blown apart. He hunched his shoulders, keeping his face carefully turned away from you. A muscle spasmed in his cheek.

“That’s not something I can want anymore,” he whispered.

“It’s always going to be something I want to give to you,” you said plainly.

Jason laughed, a little brokenly. “I don’t even know where to go from here. It was stupid to keep coming to see you. There was no reason for it. Nothing logical, anyway. I didn’t want you to find out who I was. And I was risking everything by doing it. But… I just couldn’t stop myself,” he said, shrugging helplessly.

“Good,” you said, smiling weakly at him. “I tried so hard to learn how to carry the grief, Jason. But I never stopped waiting for you to show up again.”

A car alarm rang out into the air. Jason’s fingers twitched, and he bit his lip. He made an awkward gesture at your face. “Um, by the way… you’ve got, uh. Glass. In your hair.”

You blinked. “What? Oh!” Startled, you moved to touch your head.

“Wait.” Jason took a few steps forward, neatly entering your space. “Let me?”

You dropped your hands, hoping you weren’t blushing. He _did_ have gloves on. It only made sense. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Slowly, Jason reached out with one hand, hesitating right before making contact. “Close your eyes,” he said huskily.

You did, suppressing a tiny shiver at the first brush of his fingers against your temple. Jason was gentle and quick, but you still felt a tiny sting on your scalp and cheeks as he swept the broken glass from your hair. If anything, though, the burn made your nerves sing until your skin became even more sensitive to Jason’s touch.

“There,” he said, low. “You can open your eyes now.”

You opened them in time to catch an almost… tender expression on Jason’s face. Muted, but there nonetheless. You blinked up at him, suddenly self-conscious.

“Thanks,” you said, face growing warm.

“I missed you,” Jason said abruptly. “I’d be lying if I said I thought about you all the time while I was gone. Sometimes I even tried my best to forget you. For a long time… I only had one goal. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else _could_ matter. I lived in a world you could have no part in.”

It hurt to hear. Not the idea that Jason didn’t want to remember you—that notion paled in the face of all the things Jason had suffered, in a time and place where you couldn’t reach him. Your heart ached with a desire to erase all the pain and misery and suffering. Even as you knew that you couldn’t decide that for him.

You stayed quiet.

“But being around you again,” Jason said. “It felt a little like being happy again. At first, I just wanted to remember what it used to be when were kids. Friends. But then you would _do_ things. You’d hum along to a song on the radio, tell a customer about what book you were reading. You’d make funny faces at a kid. You’d tell off some asshole and make him cry.” A helpless smile tugged at the corner of Jason’s lips. “All of a sudden, I wasn’t thinking about when we were kids. Instead, I wanted to get to know you. All over again.”

You swallowed and waited until you thought your voice wouldn’t shake when you spoke. “I missed you too,” you said softly. Carefully, you held out your hand, letting it hover in the space between the two of you—not a demand, but a quiet offer if he wanted it.

Emotion flickered in Jason’s face, too quick for you to scrutinize. After a beat, he took your hand. His fingers curled around yours, warm and solid.

You smiled at him. Your eyes felt a little wet, but you could see Jason’s face, clear in the moonlight and city neon. That was what mattered.

“We’ve got time now,” you said. “Jay.”

***

EPILOGUE/CODA

 

“Admit it,” you said with a grin, setting down the steaming mug on the coffee table. “You’re just with me because of the books.”

Jason glanced up, flashing you a quick smirk before going back to his paperback. “Yeah, that was the plan all along, babe,” he said. “I was taught by a master strategist, you know.”

You rolled your eyes and dropped down on the couch. Jason shifted a little, angling and moving until his legs were tangled with yours. You kicked him playfully.

“You can pay me back,” you said pointedly, “by helping with the new window display.”

“Do I get to pick the theme this time?”

You let out a snort and brushed your thumb over the jut of his cheekbones. The novelty of touching him still hadn’t worn off. You had a feeling it never would. “Only if you can keep it PG-13 or below,” you said.

Jason tossed the paperback—the copy of WWI poetry, which you’d given him shortly after your reunion—to the side. He grabbed your wrist and slowly, carefully took your thumb between his teeth—biting down just hard enough for electricity to race up your spine.

“Are you trying to bribe me?” You asked with a laugh.

Jason released your thumb and pressed a lazy, open kiss to the delicate skin of your wrist. “Nah,” he said. “This? Is for me."

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @missjondrette.


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